I think WVU seeks to play more man-to-man defense this coming season. Not exclusively, but not rarely, either. A year ago, the Mountaineers tinkered with it and then seemed to abandon it.

This being spring and spring being about exploration and explanation in my line of work, I tend to favor one of those stories over the other.

So, sure, it’s news that Tony Gibson, in his first season as the defensive coordinator, wants to man up more than before, though I don’t find his reason to be all that shocking. In short, he feels a lot better about this year’s group than he did about last year’s group, but, yeah, spring football, y’all.

Then again, it’s the the specific feelings and the differences between them that grabbed my ears. If he feels confident about this year’s group, he must have had an opposite impression of last year’s group. And so it was that I found his confession for why WVU didn’t and wouldn’t lean more on it last season to be enlightening.